Local Business

The B grade competition welcomes Youth Club and Tatyoon to
its ranks and says goodbye to Aradale, Wickliffe/Lake Bolac and Willaura.

"All teams are the same, except the ones down the
southern end," Mr Martin said.

"Wickliffe/Lake Bolac and Willuara are struggling in
numbers and requested a drop in grade. It's a little bit of a worry."

Wickliffe/Lake Bolac have held a number of emergency
meetings to increase player numbers.

"They have said yes with their fingers crossed. The
executive felt if they drop out, it's better for them to be down the bottom in
C grade," Mr Martin said.

Mr Martin said the general feeling by the teams is that it
is easier to a find a new team each week instead of finding the same team to
play two weeks in a row.

"Everyone is a bit keen to play a one-day
fixture," he said.

"We had a few hassles getting the draw together. We had
the premiers and runners up (move up), it has always been one up and two down.
In an ideal world, this would continue, but this time it was three down, two
up. We'll see how it runs and look for another solution next year."

A grade will continue as is with eights teams and there will
be 10 C grade sides instead of nine.

Like last year, Mr Martin expects there will be team
forfeits due to events such as the Dunkeld and Avoca races but clubs have the
option of playing on the Sunday.

"If both teams can agree to changing to Sunday, clubs
always have the option. The executive can try and nurse them through it (the
process) but if they can't agree, they've got to go by the draw."

Another problem facing GCA over 2011/12 was the replacement
of the more senior players with those stepping up from under 16s.

"There was one instance where St Andrews were playing
on a code red day, fielding under 16 players who had to play for three hours in
the morning and then were expected to play five hours in the afternoon. By this
stage, they lose their enthusiasm," Mr Martin said.

These are some of the issues covered in the GCA 2012/13
survey handed out to the clubs in order to gather feedback that will hopefully
benefit the competition.

There is also a player survey that will be posted on the
MyCricket website that players, or even parents of young players, can fill out.

"It's all part of trying to improve the competition.
This year we feel some of our assets aren't being fully utilised," Mr
Martin said.

Mr Martin said while the oval position is not as stressed as
last year, where they struggled to find available grounds, he would like to see
more C grade games played at Alexandra Oval and Central Park.

"C grade would get a bit of a kick of going to
Alexandra Oval and Central Park," he said.

This year, Grampians Cricket Association is well-structured,
with people doing specific jobs.

Mr Martin praised office bearer Rhonda North, who is now in
her second year in an official role.

Scotney Hayter has been appointed in charge of the MyCricket
website and teams have been warned that if they don't hand in score sheets by
Monday, they will lose points.

Last year, score sheets were not filled in on time resulting
in headaches for everyone involved including this publication.

"We can't have what happened last year. That was
nowhere near good enough," Mr Martin declared.